The Virgin Suicides is the debut novel by American author Jeffrey Eugenides, published in 1993. The story, which is set in Grosse Pointe, Michigan during the 1970s, centers on the lives of five doomed sisters, the Lisbon girls. The novel is written in first person plural from the perspective of an anonymous group of teenage boys who struggle to find an explanation for the Lisbons' deaths. The novel's first chapter appeared in The Paris Review in 1990, and won the 1991 Aga Khan Prize for Fiction. The novel was adapted into a 1999 movie by director Sofia Coppola, starring Kirsten Dunst.
Secrets & Lies is a 1996 drama film written and directed by Mike Leigh. Led by an ensemble cast consisting of many Leigh regulars, it stars Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Hortense, a well-educated black middle-class London optometrist, who was adopted as a baby and has chosen to trace her family history – and discovers that her birth mother, Cynthia, played by Brenda Blethyn, is a working-class white woman with a dysfunctional family. Claire Rushbrook co-stars as Cynthia's other daughter Roxanne, while Timothy Spall and Phyllis Logan portray Cynthia's brother and sister-in-law, who have secrets of their own affecting their everyday family life.
Brenda Blethyn is an English actress. Known for her character work and versatility, she is the recipient of various accolades, including a Golden Globe, a BAFTA, and a Cannes Film Festival Award, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards and two Primetime Emmys. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to drama in 2003.
Wendy Orlean Williams was an American singer, best known as the lead singer of the punk rock band Plasmatics. She was noted for her onstage theatrics, which included partial nudity, exploding equipment, firing a shotgun, and chainsawing guitars. Performing her own stunts in videos, she often sported a mohawk hairstyle. In 1985, during the height of her popularity as a solo artist, she was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance.
Life Is Sweet is a 1990 British comedy-drama film directed by Mike Leigh, starring Alison Steadman, Jim Broadbent, Claire Skinner, Jane Horrocks and Timothy Spall. Leigh's third cinematic film, it was his most commercially successful title at the time of release. A tragi-comic story, it follows the fortunes of a working-class North London family over a few weeks one summer.
The First Wives Club is a 1996 American comedy film directed by Hugh Wilson, based on the 1992 novel of the same name by Olivia Goldsmith. The film stars Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn, and Diane Keaton as three divorcées who seek retribution on their ex-husbands for having left them for younger women. The supporting cast comprises Stockard Channing as Cynthia; Dan Hedaya, Victor Garber, and Stephen Collins as the three leads' ex-husbands; and Sarah Jessica Parker, Elizabeth Berkley, and Marcia Gay Harden as their respective lovers. Supporting roles are played by Maggie Smith, Bronson Pinchot, Rob Reiner, Eileen Heckart, Philip Bosco, and Timothy Olyphant in his feature film debut; cameo appearances include Gloria Steinem, Ed Koch, Kathie Lee Gifford, and Ivana Trump.
The Sleeping Dictionary is a 2003 British-American romantic drama film written and directed by Guy Jenkin and starring Hugh Dancy, Jessica Alba, Brenda Blethyn, Emily Mortimer, and Bob Hoskins. The film is about a young Englishman who is sent to Sarawak, Malaysia, in the 1930s to become part of the British colonial government. There he encounters some unorthodox local traditions, and finds himself faced with tough decisions of the heart involving a beautiful young local woman who becomes the object of his affections. The Sleeping Dictionary was filmed on location in Sarawak.
Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior is a 2006 Disney Channel Original Movie (DCOM) starring Brenda Song and Shin Koyamada. The voice of Hadley Hudson is also featured. Koyamada plays a Chinese monk who visits the title character. Wendy is a Chinese-American teenager played by Song, claimed to be the reincarnation of a powerful female warrior. She is also the only person who can prevent a spirit of an ancient and evil Chinese dragon named Yan-Lo, voiced by Hudson, from destroying the world.
Phyllis Logan is a Scottish actress, widely known for her roles as Lady Jane Felsham in Lovejoy (1986–1993) and Mrs Hughes in Downton Abbey (2010–2015). She won the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer for the 1983 film Another Time, Another Place. Her other film appearances include Secrets & Lies (1996), Shooting Fish (1997), Downton Abbey (2019) and Misbehaviour (2020).
Bridge to Terabithia is a 2007 American fantasy drama film directed by Gábor Csupó from a screenplay by David L. Paterson and Jeff Stockwell. It is based on the 1977 novel of the same name by Katherine Paterson and stars Josh Hutcherson, AnnaSophia Robb, Bailee Madison, Zooey Deschanel, and Robert Patrick. In the film, adolescent children Jesse Aarons (Hutcherson) and Leslie Burke (Robb) create "Terabithia", a fantasy world, which they use to cope with their troubled reality and spend their free time together.
The history of General Hospital refers to the ABC Daytime soap opera General Hospital that has lasted for over 60 years.
On May 12, 2007, Alec Kreider, a 16-year-old high school student at the time, murdered his classmate and friend Kevin Haines, his father Thomas Haines, and mother Lisa Haines in their home in Manheim Township, Pennsylvania, United States. Kreider was arrested a month later on June 16, 2007 and was charged with three counts of first degree murder. He pleaded guilty to all charges, and was subsequently convicted on all three counts and sentenced to three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. Kreider later became eligible for a re-sentencing hearing following the United States Supreme Court's 2012 decision in Miller v. Alabama, which held that mandatory sentences of life without the possibility of parole are unconstitutional for juvenile offenders.
Wake Wood is a 2009 Irish supernatural horror film directed by David Keating and starring Timothy Spall, Eva Birthistle, Ella Connolly and Aidan Gillen. An international co-production between Ireland and the United Kingdom by Hammer Film Productions, the film is set in Donegal, Ireland. The story revolves around a grieving couple, Patrick and Louise, who move to a rural village after the tragic death of their daughter, Alice. They encounter strange rituals led by Arthur, a veterinary colleague, that can bring the dead back to life for three days.
This Is England '88 is a 2011 British drama miniseries written by Shane Meadows and Jack Thorne as a spin-off from the 2006 film This Is England. It is also a sequel to the 2010 television sequel-series This Is England '86, set two and a half years later and starring as previously Thomas Turgoose as Shaun, Vicky McClure as Lol and Joe Gilgun as Woody.
Jack Theodore Hannah is a fictional character on the New Zealand soap opera Shortland Street. Portrayed by Reuben Milner since 2014 in what was originally a 4-episode stint, the character became a regular character in the following years and had a family unit written around him. After 9 years on and off, Jack would leave in 2023.
Outside Edge is a British sitcom by Richard Harris that starred Brenda Blethyn, Robert Daws, Josie Lawrence and Timothy Spall. Three series and a Christmas special were produced by Central Independent Television and were broadcast on ITV from 24 March 1994 to 13 February 1996. The series was adapted from Harris' original stage play which premiered in 1979; upon adapting it for television, Harris expanded on the characters' back stories and introduced more plot lines that were absent in the original play. The series focuses on the lives of two couples with contrasting attitudes, the uptight and conservative Roger (Daws) and Miriam Dervish (Blethyn) with the bohemian and adventurous Kevin (Spall) and Maggie Costello (Lawrence) and their involvement with the local Brent Park Cricket team who meet every Saturday. Other members of the cricket team are also dealt with, from the lecherous womaniser Dennis Broadley, timid and naive Nigel, snobbish solicitor Alex Harrington and browbeaten husband and later father Bob Willis, along with a number of other characters who also regularly appear through the series' run. The series was one of the more successful ITV sitcoms during the 1990s, and it won a number of awards at the time, it won awards for Best Comedy Drama and Best Actress in 1994 for Brenda Blethyn at the British Comedy Awards in 1994, as well as a Writer's Guild of Great Britain award for best situation comedy in 1994 for its writer/ creator Richard Harris. Moreover, both Robert Daws and Josie Lawrence were nominated for Best Actor and Best Actress at the British Comedy Awards in 1995. The series was not the first time that the play had been adapted for television: it had been previously adapted as a one-off television play that was shown in 1982, which starred Paul Eddington (Roger), Prunella Scales (Mim), Jonathan Lynn (Kevin) and Maureen Lipman (Maggie) in the principal roles.
